The Fighter
by nelle-fang
Summary: A new girl is sent to Horizon to be apart of the Cliffhangers. She is full of anger and always gets into fights. What will the Cliffhangers do when they find out that there is more to this girls troubles than just fighting.
1. Sentencing

Higher Ground: The Fighter

Ch. 1: Sentencing

NelleFang

_**This is my attempt at a season 2 of the show. I don't own the shows characters, only my own. Please R&R.**_

"Miss Dawson, do you understand your choice here?" the Judge asked the young brunette standing before him.

"Please Your Honor. She's troubled, that's all. She's not a bad person. She needs help, not punishment." A man in a grey suit said standing up and placing his hands on the girl's shoulders.

"Please Mr. Richards; I'm trying to make sure Miss Dawson understands her sentencing. Do you Miss Dawson?"

"It's either jail or a school for freaks. I chose jail." The young girl replied.

"Please Your Honor; don't send her to a detention facility." The man behind the girl pleaded.

"You're a very lucky young woman to have been placed with such a caring foster family." The Judge said.

"Yeah I'm blessed." The girl whispered.

"So since you have a family who cares and feel you can turn your life around. I am sending you to Mt. Horizon High School. You will stay there until you graduate. I hope you use this chance to change your behavior and your life around. I also hope I never see you in a court room again." And the Judge struck his mallet against his desk.

The man in the grey suit led the young brunette girl out of the court room. They met up with a tall slender woman with dark hair and a young man with short similarly dark hair. The woman was wearing a blue sun dress and the young man, faded jeans and a red Korn t-shirt.

"So?" the young man asked.

"She's going to Horizon." The older man replied.

"So we can visit her." The young man said with a smile.

"Occasionally."

"Wonderful." He placed his arm around the young girl. "I'll visit all the time."

"Great." The girl responded.

An officer walked up to the group. "I am Officer Torres, Mr. Richards. I will be escorting Miss Dawson back to your home for her things. Someone from the school will come by to pick her up."

"Of course officer. My car is in the lot. A blue Toyota." The man replied.

"Actually I will be taking Miss Dawson in my car and we will meet you at your home." Torres stated.

"Of course, forgive me. We will see you in a few baby girl." The man said.

The girl just smiled half heartedly and went with the officer. After they were away from her foster family the officer stopped. "Alexa, you got off easy here. If you pull any of your aggressive behavior at Horizon they might send you to jail not a detention center. Now I know the guy who runs the place, he's a good friend of mine. I think you will be able to be happy there. So don't blow it. Also I will be riding up with you for part of the trip so no funny business." Officer Torres said.

"There's just one problem with this place." Alexa stated.

Torres looked down at her, "And what's that?" he asked.

"It's not at the opposite side of the world." She replied.

Torres raised his eye brows curious by what she just said, but he didn't push it. He decided that he would just tell Sophie, who was the one coming to pick her up.

* * *

It was an hour after they got to her foster parent's house when she was all pack. Officer Torres had watched her as she packed. She had grabbed her journals, pen, pencils, sketch books, and cloths into two duffel bags and a side bag. A few minutes later the door bell rang and Alexa heard her foster parents and brother greeting their guest.

"Ready?" Torres asked.

All she could do was nod and followed him down the stairs where a blond woman was waiting for her.

"Sophie this is our daughter, Alexa." Mr. Richards said.

"Foster daughter." Alexa corrected.

Sophie had taken note of this and planned to ask her about it later. Sophie walked up to Alexa to shake her hand but Alex folded her arms across her chest.

"Are you packed and ready to go?" Sophie asked.

Alexa didn't say anything. "Alexa don't be rude." Mr. Richards said.

"It's okay Mr. Richards, a lot of the kids we get hate the fact of being taken away from the life they know." Sophie replied.

"Please call me Tom." He turned to Alexa, "Please be good and we'll come and visit you as soon as we're aloud to."

Alexa picked up her bags and walked to the front door, opened it and walked out to the unfamiliar car parked outside. At first Sophie and Torres thought she might run, but after quickly following her out they saw her sit by the car.

"She doesn't like goodbyes much. Too much pain has come from them." Tom said. I hope you call us when you get there."

"Of course Mr. Richards. It was nice meeting all of you."

As Torres and Sophie head over to the car Torres tells Sophie about Alexa wanting to be on the other side of the world. Sophie made a note to bring that up in their first personal meeting tomorrow.


	2. Beginning the First Day

Higher Ground: The Fighter

Ch. 2: Beginning the First Day

NelleFang

_I don't own any of the Higher Ground Characters only my own. Please R&R. Any reviews will do even the flamey ones._

It had taken them a day and a half to get to Horizon. Officer Torres had volunteered to make sure Alexa didn't try to run during the night, but to both the officer's and Sophie's surprise she didn't. In the morning the girl parted ways with Officer Torres and traveled the rest of the trip alone. Once the two arrived at Mt. Horizon two men walked towards them. Taylor, another teach came to meet them with Peter.

"Hello Alexa, welcome to Horizon. I'm Peter Scarsburrow, this is Taylor one of our teachers." Peter said holding out his hand.

Alexa kept her arms crossed and ignored his hand. Alexa thought this Peter look like a real mountain man. She wondered why he would work here to deal with 'troubled' teens.

"Taylor here will take you to get your physical done and then Sophie and I will meet you in the processing room in a few minutes." Peter said, but Alexa didn't respond in any way.

After Taylor lead Alexa away Peter turned to Sophie. "So what's her story? I thought she was in trouble for fighting and drug abuse. But she doesn't seem to be violent or high at all."

"I don't know what to tell you Peter. You know Daniel Torres stayed with us last night just in case she ran, but she didn't do anything. She just kept to herself. Also Danny told me she wished she was half way around the world." Sophie replied.

"She is definitely not like any other kids we have gotten in the past. I'll start processing her in. Can you tell the Cliffhangers they're getting a new member?" Peter asked.

"Sure, then I'll be take her to meet the Cliffhangers." Sophie said patting his shoulders and headed to the Cliffhanger's female bunk to tell the girls first and Peter went to the processing room.

-Cliffhanger's Female Bunk-

"I can't believe Peter is punishing us with a newbie." Shelby said.

"Shelby." Sophie replied. "Kat graduated. There's a bed available so she's staying in your group."

"Fine, but we don't have to like it." Daisy stated.

"Please try to make her feel welcomed." Sophie said as she headed out. "Hey Juliet can you show her around?"

"Sure," she said smiling. "I'd love to."

"Suck up." Shelby said and Juliet stuck her tongue out at her.

"Be nice you two." Sophie said as she left.

-Processing Room-

"So the rules are: no drugs, no alcohol, no sex, no fighting, you do your chores, and you do your school work. Any questions?" Peter said but didn't get any answer or find any contraband, which he found odd because of her history of drug and alcohol abuse. All he did find was several leather bound journals and sketches.

Alexa watched the 'Mountain Man' closely as he opened one of her journals and found his puzzling look funny, then quickly looked away. He couldn't read it, no one could. He looked at the book and scanned over the numbers. "So what does this mean?"

But she was still not talking. She just stared at the ground cracking her fingers.

"Journal?"

She looked up.

"Well that's a start. I'll let you keep this, but you need to have one in English, without a code. Okay?" He raised his eyebrows but still no reaction. "So you write a journal in code. Very interesting. Afraid someone might read it?" he asked.

"It's private." She said.

"Now that's more like it. No we're getting somewhere." Peter said but that's all he got out of her. Sophie walked in a minute later to bring her to her bunk. After Peter had logged all of her belongings in Sophie took Alexa to meet her roommates.

As they walked Sophie explained about the hikes and trips she will make with the Cliffhangers and any rule breaking will result with more chores. Finally after what had felt like an hour for Alexa, they reached the Cliffhanger's Female Bunk.

Sophie opened the door to let Alexa in first then followed. "Girls, this is Alexa. Alexa this is Shelby, Daisy and Juliet. I'll let you four get acquainted and settle in." Sophie said smiled at Alexa and left.

"So new girl, what's your problem?" Daisy asked.

Alexa just walked over to her bed that Sophie had pointed out and sat down not answering her.

"Come on we all know each other's reasons for being her. What's yours?" Juliet said.

But Alexa just cracked her fingers like before.

"So what, your parents sent you here cause you don't talk?"Shelby asked.

Alexa looked up and cracked all of her knuckles at once then grabbed her side bag and left. Julie ran after her. "Hey where are you going?"

Shelby and Daisy decided to follow since they wanted to meet up with the boys.

"Hey." Juliet said pulling at Alexa's arm. Alexa froze. "You don't know your way around yet. Why don't you just stick with us for now."

"Yeah we're about to meet up with the guys in the cafeteria." Daisy said.

"Come on Ms. Silent. You must be hungry." Shelby added.

Daisy and Shelby headed toward a big cabin, and Juliet tugged on Alexa's sleeve. "Come on." And Alexa followed.

Alexa looked around the cabin looking building amazed. She followed her roommates to a table where four boys were sitting. Shelby sat next to a handsome blond, who looked athletic; Daisy sat between a curly haired boy and an angry boy; while Juliet sat next to a Hispanic boy who called her Jules.

"Who's this?" the angry boy asked.

"That, David, is our new member." Shelby said.

"So what's she done then?" he asked.

"Shut up David. It's her first day she doesn't know anyone yet alone trust anyone." The athletic boy said. He looked at Alexa, "Just ignore him. I'm Scott, that's Ezra, "he pointed to the curly haired boy, "that's Auggie," he pointed to the Hispanic who smiled, "and the jerk is David."

Alexa smiled at Scott and thought he was nice and wondered why he was at Horizon, he seemed perfect.

Shelby didn't like how Alexa was looking at her man. "Hey get your sluty eyes off my man. He's taken."

Alexa looked at her feet. She had to try not to start any fights. "Relax Shel." Scott told his girlfriend. "Why don't you sit and eat?" he offered.

Alexa didn't want to be near this group at the moment, with the exception of Scott. She wanted to be alone and so she decided to find an empty table instead of joining theirs.

"Okay so what's her problem?" David asked.

"Shut up David." Scott, Auggie, and Juliet said together.

Juliet watched Alexa sit at a table that was the furthest from where they sat. "Auggie lets go sit with her."

"I don't know Twig. Maybe she wants to be alone." He replied.

"Come on let's just try." She begged.

"Alright Jules." He said and followed his girlfriend over to where Alexa sat.

"Mind if we joined you?" Juliet asked.

Alexa thought it was weird that they had come over to her, but decided to just ignore her and continued to draw. She didn't even move when they both sat down.

"So you draw, huh?" Auggie asked.

Alexa covered her note pad. She never shared her art with anyone before and was a little concerned with started now.

"Auggie draws to. He's really good. Can we please see your work?" Juliet asked.

This time she looked up at Juliet and pushed her notebook towards her. She thought that it couldn't be too bad showing them. Juliet smiled and grabbed the book and her eyes grew wider when she saw the art and said 'wow'.

Auggie then looked down at the pad, "You're really good Alexa." He added.

"Thanks." Alexa said then worried about breaking her silence.

Both Juliet and Auggie looked up at her. "So you do talk." Auggie replied.

Alexa decided that she had to try to open up, here of all places. "Only when I want to. I can go silent for weeks, months even." Alexa replied.

"Cool." Auggie said and Juliet smile.

"Don't tell anyone that I do talk. It's actually a lot more fun to watch them be all uneasy around me." Alexa said.

Auggie laughed quietly. "So earlier with Shelby?"

"All an act. I've learned to play roles. It's kept me alive so far." Alexa replied.

"Why do you have too?" Juliet asked.

Alexa gave a small smile. "No one is ready to hear what I have to say. Not even me."

"No problem." Auggie said. "Twig and I will keep your secret."

"Cool now I'm going to go back to my dorm, or at least try. Juliet are you up for some acting?" Alexa asked.

"Yeah." She smiled. "Why though?"

Alexa pointed with her eyes behind Auggie. "Peter and Sophie have been watching. Now they haven't seen us talk, I've made sure of that but I want to give a little performance for them and Shelby."

"I'm not so sure." Juliet said.

"Come on, it'll be fun."

"Okay I'm in." Juliet stated

"Me too." Auggie added.

Alexa smiled then wrote down what she wanted Auggie and Juliet to do because Peter started watch them again. After saying they understood Alexa grabbed her stuff aggressively and started leaving. Juliet followed pulling her arm like she had done earlier. Alexa then turned around and pushed Juliet to the floor and then Auggie started yelling at her and Alexa ran out. The whole student body was staring at Auggie and Juliet while Peter ran after Alexa. Sophie went over to Auggie and Juliet to see what had happened.


End file.
